


To Prove Strength

by last_beginning



Series: standing over my grave, digging up my corpse [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, based off some theorizing about lines of dialogue and my own headcanon, here's my headcanon backstory for xero, im gonna try and write about the other warrior dreams too, ppl should explore them more, the warrior dreams are very interesting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29187390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/last_beginning/pseuds/last_beginning
Summary: It is said that Xero, a warrior, turned traitor against the king of Hallownest, and was executed. The truth in the story, however, is not so clean-cut.
Series: standing over my grave, digging up my corpse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142885
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	To Prove Strength

If Xero were pressed, he may have confessed a belief that you could not move forward in this world without an ideology. Not necessarily a religious one, per say, but some philosophy, some code, some rule of life that fueled your life and the actions you took. For Xero, of course, this meant strength. Not strength for strength’s sake, but the strength to face anything that comes your way, from deep sorrows to powerful enemies. Strength to look down the end of a blade and merely see a chance for an opening in your opponent’s defense.

Looking up the end of the Kingsmould’s curved blade as it raised over his head, everything tinged that furious- powerful- shade of orange, he realized he had been wrong. Strength found him nothing in the end but a tomb.

-

Xero had been a fighter since he was a kid. Not quite literally, not yet, but he had been sickly as a child, often quick with illness. Still, he survived, and he often remembered his mother’s worried but hopeful voice, promising, “You’re a fighter, Xero, you’ll get through this.” 

He had fought his childhood illnesses and won, and when other kids noted his struggle with material he had not gotten to learn while he was sick, he fought them too. Xero may have received detention, but the other kids never questioned his learning again, and it was all worth it in the end. When he walked through the halls now, his gaze as rough and focused as his fists, the other kids did not meet his eye, and he knew then that his strength frightened them. He was stronger than them, strong enough to fight back, strong enough to fight through everything. Strong enough to fight to his hope. 

If this was strength, then who was he to dare show regret?

His uncle (much to his mother’s apprehension) was proud of his nephew’s change in attitude. “It’s not good for a kid to be afraid or feel weak,” he had said, “so if you feel strong, I’ll help you be strong.” His uncle had once been a member of the Pale King’s knights, before he retired when his nephew was born. He taught Xero how to fight, how to truly fight, with sticks instead of nails that he wielded in both hands.

His uncle pulled no punches, and they roughed each other up more than his mother would ever want, but he would simply smile at her and flaunt about how strong he was- how he was a fighter, now, and would be the best fighter the kingdom had ever seen. She had smiled sadly at him, and he had fought away the feeling of guilt as easily as anything else.

-

Xero applied to become a sentry in the City as soon as possible. To become a sentry was to prove his strength, to find recognition amongst the powerful. Yet he was dissatisfied. These sentries- many did not show the strength that this position deserved. With feigned hesitant invitations to sparring matches, he taught them too the priority of strength. What good were sentries without strength? What good were sentries without a purpose? He despised them, and fought them as he would any other enemy, until they could find their own purpose. Even if that purpose was spiting him.

Then, in the dark of night, his strength struck true. A sentry who learned, who listened, leaving his nail in Xero’s side. Xero had always been a fighter, however, and he fought until there was no choice but to see his strength for what it was.

However, the sentries still remained blind, and he was discharged with an account of aggravated assault. What idiots. Perhaps their idiocy was so palpable, to everyone except themselves, that even the distant could view it. As he recovered in his home- (fighting, fighting to survive, and he would win, because that was what strength was for-) he received a letter, marked with a distinctive insignia. A distinctive brand. A summons.

A summons from The Pale King.

When Xero first saw him in person, his first thought was that the rumors had been right. He was not just glowing in the figurative sense, but the literal too- he shone with a pale light like SOUL was overflowing his very being, too much for his small form. 

“Xero,” he said, and that solid certainty in his voice, unwavering- Xero shivered. This was strength, surely. 

“My liege,” he said, bent with the chitin of his knee against the floor and the other raised in kneel. It was proper to kneel to royalty. (It was proper to yield to those with greater strength.)

“I have heard you are a skilled warrior,” he continued, his expression unchanging- or was that a mask? “You have best many of my sentries in combat. Your charges, as well, you have denied. I see potential within you that I do not see in many.”

His breath was taken from his chest, heart pounding. His strength. His strength was being recognized. Not just by children or his uncle or his mother or the sentires, but by his king. He did not respond. The Pale KIng did not wait for one.

Xero heard a door open. A strange stench filled the air. He did not flinch. The Pale King spoke over it. “I wish to witness the potential you hold. I have heard you prefer to fight with two nails, correct?” Xero nodded, solid and sure, and with a gesture from The Pale King’s hand, he witnessed a servant move from beyond his sight and lay two nails in front of him. They were not beautiful in the traditional sense, but functional. ‘He understands,’ a voice inside him said, ‘strength is not beautiful. He understands strength.’

“Ogrim,” The Pale King spoke. His head tilted minutely, just barely gazing towards the direction of the door Xero had heard open. “Please. Test our guest’s strength.” With another gesture of The Pale King’s hand, Xero picked up the nails, turning to find the source of the smell. A jovial, rounded bug. Xero did not wrinkle his nose. This was Ogrim, one of The Pale King’s great knights. For such figures, such strength, he would only show deepest respect. 

The man led him to an arena, filled with that stench and yet allowed in the stark cleanliness of the White Palace, his tone excited as he spoke. “It is truly an honor to face a warrior chosen by a king,” Ogrim spoke. “We shall have an exciting battle to define the ages!”

“I am thrilled to test your strength, as well as my own,” Xero spoke, and raised his nails. “Will you raise your weapon?” Ogrim grinned, and with a noise of excitement, dove into the floor.

-

Once washed and rested, he had been accompanied by royal retainers to The Pale King’s throne room. Xero still felt the bruises upon his carapace, and yet he could feel nothing but pride. He had proven his strength, and Ogrim had proven his. They were not quite evenly matched, no, even with terrain advantage Xero had bested him, but the battle did not feel unworthy. He felt whole. 

He arrived within the throne room to find The Pale King in nearly the same position he had last saw him. Xero was not sure how he knew The Pale King had moved, other than that it was unlikely he had stayed still for so long. He kneeled once more before The Pale King, awaiting his words. What was he here for? Some small, hopeful part of him hoped that, with his strength proven, he could join the Great Knights of The Pale King. He could imagine his mother and his uncle’s faces, seeing he had proven his strength to The Pale King. 

“You have proven yourself just as strong as I believed,” he said, and Xero struggled not to puff up with pride. Strength recognized strength. “It is doubtless that your strength should receive recognition.” 

Xero lowered his head further in his kneeling position, “Thank you, Sire,” and hoped his voice had not been too shaky from the adrenaline rushing through him. He was right, was he not? Was he? 

There was a pause. Then, The Pale King’s steady voice once more. “At the very edge of this Kingdom, there exists a Colosseum. A place built for testing strength. Word of this Colosseum has extended far beyond this kingdom, bringing visitors who would seek to find worthy challenge there. Here, in Hallownest, I have kept its voice quiet.” 

Something in the air changed- or maybe it was just himself. He raised his head, looked up to him. “What would you ask of me, Sire?” He would prove his strength if requested, sure, but what did this mean for him?

“The keepers of this Colosseum are mysterious folk. The ruler of this place calls himself the Lord Fool, yet little of his true intentions have bared themselves to me.” He turned his hand, palm up, towards Xero. “I would ask you to become my champion in the Colosseum of Fools.”

Breath caught in his chest, trapped like lumaflies in a lantern. “Of course, Sire. I shall do what you ask of me.” The champion of The Pale King. He was his champion! Surely his strength now would be irrefutable, unforgettable. The world would know him.

The Pale King’s head tilted downward, and despite the unchanging expression he wore (on his face-or-mask), Xero received the impression that he was being smiled upon. “Excellent, Xero. It shall be an honor to have you as my champion.”

-

The Pale King had failed to let him know of one crucial detail, when Xero had become his champion. He had simply forgotten, he was sure, or Xero himself had failed to pick up on what he had thought obvious in his statements. That is, the deadly nature of the Colosseum of Fools.

It was not just fighting to prove strength. It was fighting until your opponent’s heart had stopped beating. Xero was not sure how to feel. He was proving his strength, but that strength had never come at the cost of another life. He had received the perfect opportunity in the past, had he not? Yet he let the sentry live. 

His nails doomed many, nonetheless. To fail to kill was to die himself. Xero promised himself he would survive. He would prove his strength in the face of lethality, in the face of killing intent, in the face of the Lord Fool. Fool, here, was no insult, no derision, no low blow to a child who could not know. Fool was the title of those who ruled this place, those were powerful and strong and could prove it. 

Xero learned little of the truth behind the Colosseum of Fools, though he passed along what information he could. The Fools who came here wore distinctive masks and armor, made from somewhere deep within the Colosseum. He shared with The Pale King the types of warriors, the startling mechanics hidden within the walls and floors, and the strange foreboding room riding to the left of the warrior’s place of preparation and pause before pursuing battle. 

He seemed interested in the latter most of all. Xero did not ask. It was not his place to ask. 

He also learned of the infection as he sat amongst the barracks. Despite the truth of this place, the room below the Colosseum floor where warriors could rest and prepare carried an air of calm. Warriors talked, chatted, joked, and discussed as if they would not bring each other’s blood to the floor when they rose to the stadium.

Rumors, they told him. Rumors of bugs with orange eyes, baring their teeth and claws and weapons at anything that caught their sight except each other. He wondered if the infection had reached Hallownest. He tried not to think too hard about it. 

Xero fought and killed for a long time in this Colosseum, in this place of death. He received a letter, once, from his mother, asking how he was faring on The Pale King’s secret mission. She did not know the truth, of course. Of course. That was simply for the best, was it not? Not tell his mother of his strength. 

He let go of the paper, smoothing out the folds he had carved into it from his tightened claws. Xero did not respond. He did not receive further letters from her. A missive had arrived, once, from an attendant at the White Palace. “It is with sincerest regret and sorrow,” it spoke, the spider-silk parchment cocooning around him like it was still being sewn by Weavers, “that we inform you, Xero of Hallownest, that your uncle, Folox of Hallownest, has passed due to infection and following termination…”

Xero doomed many with his nails in the following days. He fought through the pain, the misery, the resentment. (He had not even written of this to Xero himself. He had some- some attendant inform him of his family member’s death. Where was the strength in that behavior?) He fought until the ground was stained, until the world was stained, until the very edges of his vision were stained orange.

-

Xero held his cloak tighter as he pushed through the snow (but it did not dissolve like snow, did not seem like snow, seemed to be something else-), breath shuddering in the chilling wind that raced through this place. The Colosseum’s fights had grown to nothing. They did not aid in his strength. They did not further him, did not allow him to be known for his strength. They simply doomed all. 

He traveled along the rocky edge of the kingdom, determined to flee. To be gone from here. There was no need to stay here, to be amongst the wreck. He would find harder fights, better places to prove his strength, far from his influence. Far from the King’s reach. 

Xero stepped into a passageway, into the sight of three figures. One, familiar to the point of burning in the cold. Others, formed from his mold. Blood pounded in his ears. The Pale King looked at him, his face-or-mask-or-face-and-mask unreadable. There was no difference between his face and his mask, Xero was sure. They were one and the same. 

The orange was brilliant, now. The orange was strength. The light was radiant in his mind. Everything was clear. The Pale King was not strong. Not like he was. Xero raised his nails. 

-

(Later, a young woman would kneel before the King. “The keepers of this Colosseum are mysterious folk. The ruler of this place calls himself the Lord Fool, yet little of his true intentions have bared themselves to me.” he would say. She would be so excited. “I would ask you to become my champion in the Colosseum of Fools,” he would say. 

She could think of nothing but a whole-hearted “Yes.”)


End file.
